


SNAFU

by sheron



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Concussions, Friendship, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, POV Jack Thompson, Post-Canon, SSR Confidential 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: Jack is concussed, and Rose is there to help.





	SNAFU

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



> Thank you to Muccamukk for the original idea. This is just an excuse for some hurt-comforty feels. I hope you enjoy the story!
> 
> SNAFU: a slang expression of US military origin ― a confused or chaotic state; a mess.

 

"Wake up!" Jack hears, as if in a dream.

Something is shaking him by the shoulder as he is coming to in tiny incremental stages. His head pounds; strips of pain lancing across the skull. The nausea in his stomach increases with the irregular rocking motion that won't let up. Gusts of wind sweeps across his face, and he gulps in a breath of air. Without the wind it is too humid and too hot. Jack registers the grimy dirt caked about his face and squints his eyes open.

"Chief," Rose Roberts leans over him, her head blocking out the sun. It's still too bright. His ears ring from the sharpness in her voice, as if each note is sawing into his brain. The sea-saw motion stops when her hand drops his shoulder. Jack groans. Rose is talking. His head― It's loud. Jack wants to ask her to stop, but when he turns towards her the sun hits his face with a blinding agony.

Rose disappears. There one moment and then― he remembers― was there a crash? He remembers that much. He didn't imagine the plane crash. Did he imagine Rose?

"How are you doing, Chief?" someone says on his other side. The air smells of ocean salt and grass. Everything is too bright. Jack squints, but he can't open his eyes even a crack until he feels shade fall over his face. 

"My head..." he whimpers plaintively. It really fucking hurts.

"You hit your head during landing," the voice agrees, with evident sympathy. Rose?

"Rose."

She sighs, "Yes, Chief?"

"Rose. Was I in a crash?" Jack says, trying to turn his head, to look about. A spike of pain stops that. And, "I'm gonna throw up."

She manages to help him to his side just as he dry heaves. He's got nothing in his stomach but bile. When the nausea subsides, Jack slumps weakly back onto the rocky ground. There's something digging into his side. He tries to think, it comes sluggishly.

"You don't remember?" comes the soft question.

"Remember what?" Jack blinks his eyes open, just has a moment to glimpse the wreckage of a plane, some yards away, charred and burning mass of wood and metal, before Rose heaves a sigh. 

"Can you look at me?" she says.

"Look at you?" Jack wonders, but does as he's told. Her face doubles before his eyes, triples. "Rose," he manages a whisper once the images stop revolving, and hears the concern in his own voice, "Tell me we didn't crash."

"Sorry, Chief, but that is exactly what happened," Rose says, frowning. "How's your head? Any better?"

She is holding something under his head or maybe that's her hand. It's warm. Jack tries to reach up with his fingers to where it hurts. Groans when his fingers meet a bump.

"No, don't touch." Rose pulls his hand aside. "I cleaned up the gash a bit." She's still leaning over him. Rays of light are striking off the loose brown curls of hair hovering above him, blocking the sunlight. It reminds him of something. Something.... 

Jack blinks as the picture blurs again, doubles, triples. The copies of Rose swirl around until he has to squeeze his eyes shut against the dizziness, and all he sees are black and white spots exploding across his vision.

He says, breath catching with the realization, "We crashed."

"Sure did, and I spent the last half-hour trying to get you to wake up. Chief Thompson? Chief―are you―" The voice fades out.

 

* * *

  

"The pilot," Jack says, to no one.

There's a grunting noise behind him. He seems to be moving; he doesn't know where. Jack opens his eyes and watches the two long lines of a pattern his feet make in the white sand. There's a tarp under his body, and someone is dragging him across the beach. The distant sense that this should worry him more can't compete with his amusement, and he chuckles. At the sound, the motion stops and the tarp is carefully lowered to the ground.

"What was that?" Rose again.

"What happened?" Jack asks. 

"We crashed," she grunts, annoyance streaking through her tone for some reason.

He is not seven. "I know that. We crashed. What happened to the pilot?"

She slides into his line of sight again, considering him. "He went to get help. He is hiking to the nearby settlement. Shouldn't be long."

"But we crashed," Jack explains. He can't vocalize this properly. There's a word for it, it's just on the tip of his tongue. There's a word. "The―the― the pilot."

"What about him?" Rose sighs tiredly. She'd gotten them situated under a tree. There's a bottle of water in her hand and she passes it to Jack. He stares at the bottle until she shakes it in his line of sight, like a toy before a cat. Jack is still staring at the hypnotically concentric circles in the plastic even as it wobbles and blurs before his eyes. Rose sighs, and takes the bottle back. Jack makes a sound, but she is calmly unscrewing the cap and bringing it to his lips to take a sip. After, Jack groans and slips his eyes shut, nauseous again. "I think you are pretty badly concussed," Rose says.

"No shit."

Jack hears her dry laugh, and reopens his eyes. "What happened?"

Rose is looking back at him. "How does your head feel?"

Jack stares. What were they talking about? "I have a concussion."

She nods slowly. "The pilot is going to get us help. Then you'll see a proper doctor."

"The pilot," Jack says, and doesn't notice himself listing until she catches his shoulder, pushes him more firmly against the tree-trunk.

She rubs his shoulder through the jacket. "Chief, I hope you're okay."

"I hope you're okay," Jack murmurs.

Rose pats his shoulder. 

_Okay_ , Jack mouths, trying the word out. That was the word. "Is he okay?" he mumbles.

Rose frowns. "The pilot?"

Jack can't remember. He blinks his eyes open. "Yes," he says eventually.

"Yes, what?" Rose says. She has a towel wrapped around her head. He thinks it's to get some cover from the sun. It's very sunny, here. On the beach. Where they crashed.

He got hurt. His head got hurt. And he has a concussion. He sounds it out in his head and blinks against the blinding light.

"Where the hell is he?" Rose is saying, looking about, checking the watch on her hand, and it's night time. What? "You need a doctor."

"I...I...I think. We crashed."

Rose sighs and shakes her head. They did crash, Jack thinks somewhat stubbornly. And he hurt his head.

Jack becomes aware of a drop sweat running down his forehead. He touches his fingers to it. It's very hot. Even though it's nighttime and the ocean is right next to him, and he can feel how cool the waves would be against his skin, but that means moving and it's very hot and he just wants to sleep, but he can't because he needs to know if― if―. The idea slips away.

Trying to wet his lips with his tongue, Jack tastes salt and sand. He is on a beach. Rose is at his side. His parched throat protests the next words: "We sent out a Mayday." That's the last thing he remembers, before waking up.

Rose nods. "We've got cover for the night. They'll reach us soon." She puts a plastic bottle to his lips. "Drink."

"Cover?" Jack says after gulping down a few mouthfuls, the other aspects of their situation starting to filter through to his battered brain. "Where are we?" Some kind of a beach?

"An island off the coast, not that far from the mainland." Rose presses his lips together. "Not much longer now, and we'll have you safe and sound in L.A."

L.A. is where Daniel and Peggy are, Jack thinks. And he is in New York. Except he was in L.A. and now they crashed and everything is too loud. The pain in his head is radiating all the way down his neck, into his shoulders; pulsing. It's hard to stay sitting, and Rose's hand catches his shoulder when he lists, then she sits down next to him, propping him upright with her own body.

"I think you're hurt worse than I realized," Rose murmurs, supporting most of his weight now. That's right, he is concussed. He doesn't want her to mother-hen, so he doesn't tell her. If he's very, very careful, she won't know. He's just going to sit still and not let on that he hit his head. So they sit under a tree. What kind of a tree?

"More people get killed by coconuts than by shark attacks." Jack says, looking up for any signs of danger. Are they sitting under a palm tree? He can't see very far; his vision is blurry. The dark shape of a tree trunk appears in triplicate. He blinks, wondering why he can't see. Well of course he can't, it's the middle of the night. Isn't it? It's dark.

"I thought that was pineapples," Rose replies absently, then shifts so she is crouching in front of him and slaps her hands together with unnatural excitement. "Well," she smiles grimly, "Chief, like it or not, I have to check your torso for injuries." There are matter-of-fact hands unbuttoning Jack's shirt from the bottom up. Looking down at his bare chest, he watches Rose frown in consternation, looking him over.

"I hit my head," he explains and points to his forehead, up from where she's looking.

A smile quirks her lips. "Yeah, I guess that's the worst of it." She carefully draws his shirt closed again and buttons it up. Her hands are bruised, and there are soot marks going all the way up her arms, where the shirt is rolled up to the elbows. 

"Are you―" he clears his throat, mouthing the word first, then pushing it past his lips, "okay?"

Rose nods, the small bruise next to her chin drawing his attention. He almost reaches out to touch it, but he remembers something. The pilot. They crashed and the pilot isn't with them. That seems wrong.

Jack is about to ask Rose: what happened to the pilot, when he realizes she is crouching a few feet away, riffling through one of their backpacks, at her feet. She pulls out a protein bar and, ripping the foil open smoothly, bites into it.

When she notices him watching, Rose says, "I think you should eat something, now we've sort of ruled out internal injuries. Would you like some, Chief?"

Jack stares at the foil, then glances back at her. The world spins vaguely, but Rose is a steady presence at his side. Shaking her head once, Rose brings back a blanket that she then sticks behind his head, like a pillow, and he rubs his cheek slightly against the rough wool, settling deeper. He is floating but Rose seems to have everything under control.

He should never have doubted that she'd be a cool head in a crisis. Peggy had said. He'd owe Peggy lunch, if he ever got back to L.A. Right then, L.A. seemed like a far away dream, distant and vague.

"Don't pass out!" Rose calls to him. It makes Jack's ears ring again when he'd really just like to slip away and rest. Just five more minutes. He doesn't have to get up because he's not in the office because... they crashed.

"G'away, I'm busy," Jack mumbles and doesn't pass out. 

 

* * *

  

"Hey, Jack," the voice says.

Slowly, Jack reopens his eyes. Daniel is crouched in front of him, on one knee, the other, bad leg stretched out behind him. 

"Are you okay?"

"No. We crashed, Daniel," Jack explains.

Daniel chuckles. "Okay, then. Think you can get up?"

"Sure." Jack goes to do so. The world whirls with a firework of lights exploding behind his eyelids, and he feels like he's dying.

Suddenly hands are on both sides of him. Rose is on one side. Peggy's on the other. They're holding him up, while his legs seem to have turned to jello. Daniel clambers up to his feet and Jack follows his progress with wide eyes.

"Okay, let's get him home... or a hospital," Daniel says, and grabs the lone backpack before heading along the beach to where a boat sits anchored a few feet into the ocean. The guy, the-the― the _pilot_ is sitting in the boat waiting, all whole and alive. Even though they crashed. Jack feels a strange wave of relief crash over him.

With Peggy and Rose supporting him on each side, they make it to the boat and Jack sits down on the center bench, and then the boat rocks on the waves and he just manages to say, "I'm gonna be sick," before Peggy pushes him to lean over the board of the boat to heave, though nothing really comes up. He wipes his mouth after and it tastes like something died in there. He was in the Navy and he'd never been sea-sick in his life. He doesn't like it.

"Maybe if you keep your eyes closed," Peggy suggests, and with the sickening motion of the boat she climbs inside. When Jack makes a disparaging noise, she rolls with it. "Just until we get to the cruiser." Jack squeezes his eyes shut before she even finishes talking, helpless against the rocking along the waves.

A couple of minutes later, he blinks his eyes open. "You came by cruiser?" But Peggy and Daniel aren't next to him anymore. 

He is on a cruiser. Rose is staring at him from a ways off. "What?" 

Damn, he must have drifted off again. The ocean breeze on his face is thick with salt, Jack can practically taste it on his tongue. Jack is sitting on a seat on the upper deck, in the back of the large boat with no idea how he got there. But they're okay. Rose is out front, leaning against the starboard. Just now, he can hear Peggy and Daniel's voices drifting up from below-deck, and the staticky responses from across a radio. 

"Nothing..." he murmurs, and snuggles deeper into the blanket he seems to have acquired in the meanwhile. It's wrapped around his shoulders and it shields him from the droplets of water, springing up on the sides of the boat as it cuts across the waves. 

"Thank you," he says, at Rose's back.

She turns her head back over her shoulder and gives him a smile. The motion of the boat gliding across the waves is soothing, and they are heading somewhere safe, he knows.

 

* * *

  

"Does he need something for the pain?"

"Shh. Don't wake him," Peggy is saying. Jack feels like they are flying. His ears feel ready to pop.

"We crashed," Jack mumbles, trying to warn her.

"What's that? You mumbling into the jacket doesn't help, Jack." It's Daniel, saying that. Jack only sighs softly in response.

His head is lying on the folded-up leather jacket used as a pillow, on Daniel's thigh. They are in a large moving car, with blackened windows. The world is fuzzy around the edges, but not so bad that he wants to move. Jack thinks about the wild, rocky beach they left behind; he thinks the car is taking them back somewhere more familiar, somewhere where they can fix his headache.

"Jack," Peggy asks, leaning over into his line of sight, "Do you need anything?"

"I think he's asleep again," Daniel says.

"M'not."

He hears the smile in Peggy's voice. "You are going to be okay," she tells Jack. "The hospital is fifteen minutes away."

"Okay," Jack says. If she says so.

Daniel's hand pats his shoulder, a warm weight. "Just rest for now."

He gets it. It's okay to rest, because... because everything is gonna be okay. Peggy and Daniel found them, and it's all okay. The pilot is okay. Rose is okay.

Jack is okay.

 

**Fin.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Coconuts also played a lethal role in the South Pacific during World War II, according to the Wikipedia article "Death by coconut". Thank you for reading.


End file.
